3.5 d&d Spell- need feedback

[Drynwyn]

Prism Blast
Evocation
Sor/Wiz 6
Casting time: 1 standard action
Spell Resistance: See Text
Save: Reflex negates, see text.
Range:200 ft. + 20ft. per caster level
Area of effect: 80 ft.
This spell fires a line of energy at a creature or other target. All creatures within 80 ft. of the target, including the target, must make a reflex save. If they make the save, they are unaffected. If they fail, they are struck by a difraction of the ray and take full damage. They are struck by one additional ray for each 5 points by which they fail the save

[Mewtarthio]

...Is this one of those real magic spells that only the Illuminated can perceive? Or are you assuming we can read your mind over the internet?

[Drynwyn]

I have edited the post, i just joined today and thought the "Message" would appear when viewing the thread.

[Glimbur]

First, I don't see how the beam is supposed to multiply. Please clarify that.

Second, what is the maximum range of the spell? It would presumably stop when it stops diffracting, but how far can a single beam go?

Third, CLd6 damage (max 20d6) in somewhat arbitrary lines is not powerful enough for a 9th level spell. I'd drop it to about 7th, and consider adding rider effects like dazzled or blinded.

[Silverscale]

You call it a Prismatic Blast. Does that mean that the damage it deals is untyped, a combination of all types, force damage......?

Also you need to clean up the wording and perhaps add a chart to show how many beams/splits you can have at a given level.

Also as the beam splits does the damage dealt get divided as well or do all the off shoot beams do the same CLd6 damage when they strike?

Also I'm assuming this is a Ranged Touch Attack since you specify angles and everything, or is it an auto-hit like Magic Missle?

Overall I think you have the start of a good idea here but you need to clearify it so that makes sense to everyone.

BTW look in the stickied threads at the top of the forum page and you should find a post that will give you the basic format for spells and other things you may want to Homebrew.

[Grelna the Blue]

The spell description was a bit confusing, but what I think I got out of it was a ranged touch attack vs. a single target (max 20d6) that then turns into a number of additional unaimed rays bouncing around randomly and multiplying x 2 every time they hit something.

The visual effect sounds good, and I'm sure you could refine the spell while retaining that, but at the moment it looks more like a nasty spell failure. I'd never want to cast it in its current version for fear of getting hit myself with one or more random rays.

It sounds as if you want to do a variant of Chain Spell attached to a ray spell. For that reason, I think it should be instantaneous. I also think a diffraction for every 3 caster levels is far too many. At level 17, the minimum level to cast the spell, the maximum number of total rays would be 1 (original ray) + 2 + 4 + 8 +16 +32. That's 63 possible rays. No one wants to adjudicate that. Even if you had diffraction occur once for every 5 levels of the caster, a 17th level caster would produce 1 + 2 + 4 + 8 = 15 rays. Better and easier to say that everyone within a certain distance of the original target (including the original target) has to make a Reflex save or get hit with a diffraction ray--if they fail by 5 they get hit twice. It still wouldn't be something I'd cast if I were at all close to the target, but it'd look pretty cool, and might be an okay blaster spell.

[Drynwyn]

The spell description was a bit confusing, but what I think I got out of it was a ranged touch attack vs. a single target (max 20d6) that then turns into a number of additional unaimed rays bouncing around randomly and multiplying x 2 every time they hit something.

The visual effect sounds good, and I'm sure you could refine the spell while retaining that, but at the moment it looks more like a nasty spell failure. I'd never want to cast it in its current version for fear of getting hit myself with one or more random rays.

It sounds as if you want to do a variant of Chain Spell attached to a ray spell. For that reason, I think it should be instantaneous. I also think a diffraction for every 3 caster levels is far too many. At level 17, the minimum level to cast the spell, the maximum number of total rays would be 1 (original ray) + 2 + 4 + 8 +16 +32. That's 63 possible rays. No one wants to adjudicate that. Even if you had diffraction occur once for every 5 levels of the caster, a 17th level caster would produce 1 + 2 + 4 + 8 = 15 rays. Better and easier to say that everyone within a certain distance of the original target (including the original target) has to make a Reflex save or get hit with a diffraction ray--if they fail by 5 they get hit twice. It still wouldn't be something I'd cast if I were at all close to the target, but it'd look pretty cool, and might be an okay blaster spell.

The spell is instantaneous. The "Round" refers to the diffraction of all beams, and does not indicate that an actual combat round has passed. I also think that the effect would be too much like Fireball if it affected the area around that. Also, don't forget that 63 rays assumes that every single one hits a creature. In addition, the remaining rays are not unaimed, they just follow the same diffraction as the original ray.

[Grelna the Blue]

The spell is instantaneous. The "Round" refers to the diffraction of all beams, and does not indicate that an actual combat round has passed. I also think that the effect would be too much like Fireball if it affected the area around that. Also, don't forget that 63 rays assumes that every single one hits a creature. In addition, the remaining rays are not unaimed, they just follow the same diffraction as the original ray.

Thanks for clearing up the duration thing. May I suggest using the word "bounce" or "reflection" in place of "round," as the second word has an alternate meaning in the game that can confuse.

Also, if a touch attack is unnecessary, then what you are describing is more of a line spell than a ray. A technicality, but another thing that can confuse people.

I thought that the difference between Fireball and my earlier suggestion, were it to be adopted, would actually all be in this spell's favor. First, you could make the radius of effect as big as Sunburst (80' radius), whereas as it stands now if it is cast by a 20th level caster someone random could get hit many hundreds of feet away from the original target because the spell text says the range resets with each diffraction. Second, if you had bouncing beams diffracting all over the place within a defined area, you could allow rules for someone getting hit either not at all (with a very successful Reflex save), partially (1/2 damage), once, or more than once (with a very unsuccessful Reflex save). Right now I'm not sure how you would check to see if someone were hit. You said the diffraction beams aren't unaimed, but I don't see where the text says that.

The caster selects which angle the beam will diffract at, but it remains constant, and does not change with each diffraction.

Incidentally, if it isn't possible for someone to be hit more than once, then you should definitely have this spell do more damage and/or add special conditions. There are many lower level mass effect spells that can be metamagicked to do more damage than this at a lower level, even without cheese.

It is quite possible, even likely, that I am failing to fully understand your intent with this spell, but as I think I have reasonably good reading comprehension, I think saying that there is ambiguity in exactly how this would play out is useful feedback. I hope you don't take offense--as I said earlier, I think the underlying spell concept and visual effect is very interesting.

[Grelna the Blue]

I see you edited the spell and it's certainly much easier now to see how it works, but I couldn't help but notice that in editing the damage section got cut out. What kind of damage does it do and how much?

[Lix Lorn]

Out of curiosity, is this based on the technology from Red Alert 2? If so, kudos to you.